It’s a hot, frantic day in the Cape Town city bowl as I make my way to 167 Longmarket Street, the new home of Dweba Art and Café. A jackhammer smashes into concrete somewhere nearby. Car drivers bicker over parking spaces.
As soon as I step inside, however, all of that sense data disappears — replaced by the smell of coffee and the sounds of gentle conversation on the far side of the room. It is light and cool. A breath of fresh air in more ways than one.
I’m greeted by Palesa Segomotso Motsumi, co-curator of “And Just Like That”, a group exhibition that will officially be launched to coincide with the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in three weeks’ time. But Dweba is open for business and ready to receive visitors, whether they come to view the art, grab a meal, meet over a coffee or work in a creative space.
Motsumi has been around the block of the local arts scene — as a writer, project manager and social entrepreneur through her creative consultancy Sematsatsa Library — but the opportunity to work with art dealer and Dweba founder Thobile Ndarana presents a new departure. Ndarana, for her part, brings diverse perspectives on the sector, from corporate and small business experience to a stint at the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art.
As the three of us walk through the exhibition, we talk about the complementary roles played by different components of the arts ecosystem in SA: museums and “public” institutions (most of which are privately funded), large and established commercial galleries, and new but ambitious start-ups like Dweba — the isiZulu word for “draw” but also Ndarana’s father’s clan name.
Her vision for the gallery is suggested by the range of artists on show. The anchor works include two photographs by Ruth Motau taken more than 20 years ago, one of which supplies the exhibition with its title: “And Just Like That”, a group of men collecting rubbish become a choral group, caught in poses as if dancing with the metal bins they are holding. It is an assertion of creativity unconstrained by socioeconomic inequality.
Another prominent name is that of the late Samson Mnisi, whose abstract compositions include a work that the artist left incomplete when he died in 2022. This lends poignance to the emotional intensity of studying Mnisi’s paintings.
Mnisi was a mentor to Funeka Shuping, also an abstractionist, whose smaller-scale works are widely on display at Dweba. Shuping, like a number of others in the exhibition, is not exactly “young” or “inexperienced” but would probably be described in art scene terms as an “emerging artist”. This is not a phrase that Motsumi likes using because, she notes, it tends to gloss over the ways in which many artists can be held back — or hold themselves back — from receiving proper recognition in the visual arts sector. In turn, Ndarana hopes to make Dweba a space where these artists can benefit from the boost (the “authorisation”) that comes with participation in formal gallery exhibitions.
There is thus a balance between paying tribute to pioneers such as Mnisi and Motau, and promoting those who are following in their footsteps. In this exhibition, Ndarana and Motsumi are forging an intergenerational community, taking their cue from black feminist icon bell hooks and “reigniting the power of collective joy in a world full of losses and wins”.
If the works displayed are a celebration of the humanity of both the artists and their subjects — for there is a keen human empathy even in the abstract works — then another theme that emerges from “And Just Like That” is the relationship between the human and the animal, particularly as represented by Cheryl Traub Adler’s ape-like figures.
Beyond the current exhibition, Dweba’s plans include starting a residency that will allow collectors to engage with artists creating work on site. While the gallery’s central location makes it likely to draw some foot traffic, Ndarana and Motsumi are keenly aware of the market constituted by international buyers who are visiting Cape Town — and of passing this touristic benefit on to artists in their networks in Johannesburg, Bloemfontein and Durban.
• “And Just Like That” runs from February 20 to April 21.
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